Many types of ratchet wrenches and related tools have been described in the relevant art. Typical among such wrenches are socket wrenches used to drive any of a selectable number of sockets, the functional elements of such wrenches including a handle-carried driving ring to which is coupled a driven core. The wrenches are provided with various mechanical means by which the torsional drive direction of the wrench may be readily reversed. Examples of the type of wrenches referred to are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,280,379 and 4,512,218, and the entire disclosures of each of these patents is hereby specifically incorporated herein by reference to the extent that such disclosures are not inconsistent herewith.
Prior art socket driving ratchet wrenches of the type described ordinarily utilize retaining spring rings as the mechanical expedient for interlocking the internal core of the wrench within the circumscribing driving ring or collar. In order to disassemble such wreches for cleaning, replacement of parts, and for general maintenance, it is necessary that the users employ a screw driver or a pliers physically to dislodge the retaining ring. Such a procedure is inconvenient and time consuming, and replacement of the spring-like ring upon reassembly of the device is not ordinarily achieved without considerable difficulty. It is to the effective resolution of this problem and to providing an improved locking mechanism for retaining the core within the ratchet. wrench for enabling disassembly and reassembly without the use of tools that a principal facet of the present invention is directed.
Another important functional structure in ratchet wrenches of the general type of the present invention is the mechanism by which tool driving reversal is effected. Such reversal is ordinarily achieved through the expedient of a shiftable or pivotal toothed pawl which engages and intercouples with cooperating teeth formed in a drive ring. Prior art arrangements include various types of mechanical linkages for effecting displacement of a pawl housed in a cavity formed in the wrench core. The shifting of the pawl in such assemblies has invariably been conducted against significant frictional resistance so that application of considerable force has been necessary to accomplish the reversal. The present invention obviates this problem by providing a low-friction, pawl-shifting assembly so that reversal of the driving mode of the wrench can be made by means of simple, even one-finger, digital manipulation.